Dante’s Inferno
By Dante Alighieri
Author Biography
• Dante Alighieri
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Son of a nobleman
Born May1265 in Florence, Italy
Received early education in Florence
Attended the University of Bologna
Experiences included a tour in the Florence
Army when he fought in the Battle of
Campaldino.
Author Biography
• His great love seems to have been Beatrice
Portinari.
• They met when they were children.
• Dante worshipped her.
• Beatrice was Dante’s inspiration for The Divine
Comedy.
• After her death in 1290, he dedicated a memorial “The
New Life” (La Vita Nuova) to her.
• Though each married, they did not marry each other.
Author Biography
• Dante entered an arranged marriage in 1291
with Gemma Donati, a noblewoman.
• They had two sons and either one or two
daughters.
• Records contain little else about their life
together.
Author Biography
• By 1302, Dante was a political exile from
Florence.
• He probably started The Divine Comedy after
this exile.
• Politics, history, mythology, religious leaders,
and prominent people of the time, of literature,
of the past, and of Dante’s personal life –
including Beatrice – appear throughout The
Divine Comedy.
Author Biography
• The work was a major departure from the
literature of the day since it was written in Italian,
not the Latin of most other important writing.
• Dante finished The Divine Comedy just before his
death on September 14, 1321.
• He was still in exile and was living under the protection
of Guido da Polenta in Ravenna.
• Perhaps still bitter about his expulsion from Florence,
Dante wrote on the title page of The Divine Comedy
that he was “a Florentine by birth, but not in manner”
(Bergin 444).
Dante’s Inferno: Historical
Background
• The Renaissance (rebirth of learning) began
in Italy in the fourteenth century and
influenced all of western civilization.
• Wealthy families in Italy, such as the
Medicis of Florence, were patrons of the
arts and sciences.
• Trade flourished and prosperity thrived
throughout much of the country.
Dante’s Inferno: Historical
Background
• All was not well in Italy during the Renaissance.
• Rulers of the independent Italian states often
fought with each other to establish a large political
unit.
• The Guelph Political party (which favored local
authority) and the Ghibelline Political party
(which favored imperial authority) were two such
rival factions.
• The two had been at war periodically since the
thirteenth century.
Dante’s Inferno: Historical
Background
• Dante’s birth in 1265 came at a time when the
Guelph party was in control of Florence.
• Dante turned away from his Guelph heritage to
embrace the imperial philosophy of the
Ghibellines.
• His change in politics is best summed up in his treatise
De Monarchia in which Dante states his belief in the
separation of church and state.
• The Ghibellines, however, were pushed from power by
the Guelphs during Dante’s adulthood and confined to
northern Tuscany.
Dante’s Inferno: Historical
Background
• The Guelph political party eventually
divided into two groups:
• The Whites (led by the Cerchi family)
• The Blacks (led by the Donati family and later
by Pope Boniface VIII).
• Dante became a member of the Whites and
served as an ambassador to talk with the Pope
in Rome about conditions in Florence.
Dante’s Inferno: Historical
Background
• While Dante was out of town, the Blacks
took over Florence.
• The Blacks sentenced Dante to banishment
from the city.
• His punishment for return would be death.
• His wanderings gave him time to write and to study
the Scriptures.
• This banishment also gave Dante his perspective on
corruption of the fourteenth century papacy, a view
that he would clearly describe in The Inferno.
Dante’s Inferno: Historical
Background
• In the year 1310, Henry VII became Holy Roman
Emperor.
• Dante believed that this German Prince would bring
peace.
• Henry VII died in 1313 and his Italian campaign
collapsed.
• Dante became disillusioned and left the political life
• He ceased work on other materials he had begun and
concentrated on The Divine Comedy.
Dante’s Inferno: Introduction
• The Divine Comedy is a narrative poem describing
Dante’s imaginary journey.
• Midway on his journey through life, Dante
realizes he has taken the wrong path.
• The Roman poet Virgil searches for the lost Dante
at the request of Beatrice.
• He finds Dante in the woods on the evening of Good
Friday in the year 1300 and serves as a guide as Dante
begins his religious pilgrimage to find God.
• To reach his goal, Dante passes through Hell,
Purgatory, and Paradise.
Dante’s Inferno: Introduction
• The Divine Comedy was not titles as such
by Dante; his title for the work was simply
Commedia or Comedy.
• Dante’s use of the word “comedy” is medieval
by definition.
• To Dante and his contemporaries, the term
“comedy” meant a tale with a happy ending,
not a funny story as the word has since come to
mean.
Dante’s Inferno: Introduction
• The Divine Comedy is made up of three parts,
corresponding with Dante’s three journeys:
Inferno (or Hell); Purgatorio (or Purgatory); and
Paridisio (or Paradise).
• Each part consists of a prologue and
approximately 33 cantos.
• Since the narrative poem is in an exalted form
with a hero as its subject, it is an epic poem.
Dante’s Inferno
• Dante and Virgil enter the wide gates of
Hell and descend through the nine circles of
Hell.
• In each circle they see sinners being
punished for their sins on Earth; Dante sees
the torture as Divine justice.
Dante’s Inferno
• The sinners in the circles include:
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Circle One – Those in limbo
Circle Two – The lustful
Circle Three – The gluttonous
Circle Four – The hoarders
Circle Five – The wrathful
Circle Six – The heretics
Circle Seven – The violent
• Ring 1: Murderers, robbers, and plunderers
• Ring 2: Suicides and those harmful to the world
• Ring 3: Those harmful against God, nature, art, as well as usurers
Dante’s Inferno: Introduction
• Circle Eight – The Fraudulent
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Bowge (Trench) I: Panderers and Seducers
Bowge II: Flatterers
Bowge III: Simoniacs
Bowge IV: Sorcerers
Bowge V: Barrators
Bowge VI: Hypocrites
Bowge VII: Thieves
Bowge VIII: Counselors
Bowge IX: Sowers of Discord
Bowge X: Falsifiers
Dante’s Inferno: Introduction
• Circle Nine – Traitors
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Region i: Traitors to their kindred
Region ii: Traitors to their country
Region iii: Traitors to their guests
Region iv: Traitors to their lords
Dante’s Inferno: Introduction
• On Easter Sunday, Dante emerges from
Hell.
• Through his travels, he has found his way to
God and is able, once more, to look upon
the stars.
Dante’s Inferno: Canto I
• Characters:
• Dante: The writer, narrator, main character, and
traveler in The Inferno.
• Leopard: The first character (Self-indulgence) whom
Dante meets.
• Lion: The second character ( Violence) whom Dante
meets.
• She-Wolf: The third character (Malice) whom Dante
meets.
• Virgil: Ancient Roman poet who appears to Dante and
becomes his guide.
Dante’s Inferno: Canto I
• Midway on his journey through life, Dante falls
asleep and loses his way.
• He wakes during the night of Maundy Thursday
(Holy Thursday) to find himself in a dark wood;
he does not know how he got there.
• Dante loses the right way; the narrow road he had
wanted to travel has disappeared.
• Dante feels hope when he sees morning rays of
sun over the mountain, even though he is still
alone in the valley.
Dante’s Inferno: Canto I
• As he scales the mountain, Dante encounters a
leopard.
• The leopard impedes his progress, but it is not very
frightening
• The second animal that Dante meets is a fierce,
hungry lion, which comes toward him swiftly and
savagely.
• The third – and worst – animal that Dante
encounters is a vicious she-wolf.
• She terrifies Dante so much that he is unable to
continue his travels.
Dante’s Inferno: Canto I
• The shade of the poet Virgil appears to Dante.
• Until the greyhound comes to secure the wolf in Hell,
Virgil explains, the only way past the wolf is another
path.
• Virgil offers to show Dante the path to an eternal place
where he can see long-departed souls.
• At that point, Virgil says, another guide will come and
take Dante to a city which Virgil cannot enter.
• Dante accepts Virgil’s offer and follows the poet.
Analysis: Canto I
• Dante has lost the narrow way to God; he finds
himself in the valley of sin and separation from
God
• Dante is not sure how he lost the bright, right, narrow
way; the darkness of sin and night (Maundy Thursday
before Passover) frightens him.
• When Good Friday (the morning of Jesus’ crucifixion)
arrives, Dante feels hope as he sees the rays of light
(goodness) shine over the mountain – a symbol of the
ascent from evil that one must make to reach God.
Analysis : Canto I
• The three animals – the leopard, lion, and wolf, are images
of sin.
• The first animal – the leopard – depicts the sins of selfindulgence or incontinence, which are often sins of youth.
• The lion represents the sins of bestial violence which often
are the sins of adulthood.
• The wolf represents the malicious sins, the sins of age.
• The greyhound is a symbol of the political or religious
leader who will come to help rid the world of greed.
• It could also symbolize Dante’s friend Can Grande (Italian for
“Great Dog”) della Scalla, the Ghibelline leader.
Analysis: Canto I
• Virgil represents human reason, which can help – to a
point – in bringing Dante out of the wood.
• Virgil was the inspiration for Dante.
• Virgil’s Aeneid was the pattern for The Inferno.
• It is natural that Virgil should guide Dante when Dante was lost in
life just as Virgil guided Dante as Dante wrote.
• Virgil’s hoarseness could refer to his not having spoken since he
began his journey to Hell, or it could refer to the fact that he had
not spoken to the world for some time since he was not a popular
writer at the time.
• It is significant that Virgil cannot speak until Dante speaks to him.
Analysis: Canto I
• Dante’s main theme is the picaresque ( or
journey) theme.
• Dante’s journey to the nether regions is vital to
The Inferno.
• With pilgrimages being common in the 1200s and
1300s, and with the influence of Virgil’s writings
on Dante, it is not surprising that Dante uses the
picaresque theme.
Analysis: Canto I
• A second theme in The Inferno is the
survival of the unfittest.
• A weak, lost Dante encounters three wild
animals and even manages a trip to the depths
of Hell and back.
• A third main theme is the reversal of
fortune.
• Dante is lost at the beginning of Canto I, but by
the end of The Inferno, he has found his way.